The Intellectual Components Of The Great Commission

"The hardest thing to raise funds for, that I know of, in Christendom is for Christian education. You want to raise money for evangelism, it's easy. You want to raise money for helping starving children, it's easy. You want to raise money for mercy ministries, it's easy. And it's good that it is. But the hardest thing is for Christian education, because people don't really think it's all that important. 'Let's get them converted. And if we can get them converted, we'll change the world.' Well, when a person is converted, they may be fifty-five years old biologically, but spiritually, they're one day old. They're babes, and babies don't change the world. It's adults that make a difference. Fifty years ago, I read the first biography ever written on Billy Graham, and Billy Graham said the thing that kept him up at night were all the people who made decisions for Christ at his rallies, he said, and he wondered, 'Who's following up? Are they being taught? Are they being grounded in the things of God?' In the first century church, the strategy of the church was, first of all, proclamation, the kerygma. The apostles went out and preached. People were converted. They brought them into the church and immediately put them into didache, teaching them, grounding them, so that they would not just be converts, but that they would be disciples. And a disciple is a student. A disciple is a learner who is enrolled in the school of Rabbi Jesus….We don't really apply ourselves to being disciples. And the Great Commission says, 'Don't just convert them. Ground them. Teach them. Bring them to maturity in their conformity to the image of Christ.'" (R.C. Sproul, 25:07 here)